All the King's Horses
by mon-petit-pois
Summary: It all started when Ziva's father did not approve her request for a liaison position with NCIS. Instead, he offered her a mission that she could not refuse. From there it did not take long for a crisis to arise— a crisis that intertwined her path with the one person who could save her. AU after Kill Ari II. T/Z.
1. Part I

A/N: Hi everybody! I have no idea where this came from… This is the longest chapter I've ever written of anything! Anyway, it will probably be a three shot. Rated M for violence and adult themes and content. Please let me know what you think!

oOo

_Summary: __It all started when Ziva's father did not approve her request for a liaison position with NCIS. Instead, he offered her a mission she could not refuse. From there it did not take long for a crisis to arise— a crisis that intertwined her path with the one person who could save her. AU after Kill Ari II. T/Z._

oOo

Part I

He had been drifting in and out of consciousness for what felt like an eternity, grappling with the elusive fabric of reality that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The grapefruit-sized lump on the back of his head was to fault for this state of limbo—it throbbed metrically and colored the shadowy room blood red.

This time, he woke to find that the sun had long ago sunk below the horizon. Now the only thing illuminating the dirt, cinderblock cell was bright moonlight coming from the barred window high on the wall against which he was leaning. It reflected off of the dust particles drifting aimlessly through the bitter night air.

As Tony's eyes began to adjust he looked across the tiny room, gaze resting on his cellmate. The past few times he'd woken up he had been much less lucid, but he'd had enough wits about him to notice the body lying near the opposite wall, just to the right of the heavy wooden door. He hadn't noticed much else before drifting off again. Now it was just dark enough that he could only make out an outline. The person lay on his side, his back facing Tony, still as death. Tony could not even make out movement that would suggest he was breathing.

God knew how long that poor soul had been here. Tony tried to open his mouth to speak to him, but he found that his tongue and throat were too dusty and dry.

When Tony's sluggish brain managed to catch itself up with the events of the past few days, he began to look toward the future, which was, at the moment, veiled in ambiguity. The sunrise would no doubt bring with it a host of unfavorable events and hostile men armed with the very guns that put that aching lump on his head. The fact that he might die did not bother him as much as he felt it should. What _bothered_him was that he might die without knowing the reason he was even here in the first place.

Tony understood the concept of _highly sensitive,_ he truly did. It was the words _top_ and _secret_ substituted for more sophisticated-sounding vocabulary. It was something he'd come across a lot in his years working for the government. He had been stonewalled enough times to understand that some material was not for his eyes and ears.

However, he did not understand why Director Jennifer Shepard had refused to tell him everything about his own operation. All of this cloak and dagger nonsense was really not his style—not to mention the fact that if he was going to give his life for something, he damn well should've been able to know what it was.

There was always the possibility of rescue, of course. Remembering Gibbs' fierce loyalty to his team made it hard to believe they would simply leave him here. It was a matter of time, however—they might chose to kill him tomorrow, in which case any rescue attempt would be futile. They might chose to torture him for information, and in that scenario he might last a few days, but even a few days is a narrow window for rescue.

That they would come he had no doubt, but was up to him to survive until the cavalry arrived.

It did not take long for his thoughts to begin to tangle together and become incoherent. Staying awake was an uphill battle, and he had neither the weapons nor the will to win it. The dirt floor beneath him began to fall away; his eyelids became heavier by the minute.

Eventually, the world faded to black once again.

oOo

It was still dark the next time his groggy eyes opened. He felt much more coherent now than he had the past few times he'd woken, and he wondered if perhaps he finally had a firm grip on reality. His brain was processing information much quicker now—it no longer took minutes for him to make simple observations.

The first observation his brain made was that his cellmate was no longer in the room. Before he could fully begin to draw conclusions, his answer came to him in the form of noises travelling from the adjacent room. He knew that sound, knew it from hot, sweaty nights and tangled cotton bed sheets. It was different here, in this context—it was not the familiar duet, but rather a solo belted in a voice with a harsh, deep timbre.

He sighed regretfully, hurting for his fellow prisoner. She—he now reasoned that his prior assumption regarding gender was incorrect—must have suffered great atrocities in her time here, and will no doubt suffer many more, with him alongside.

The man in the other room continued for what felt like an interminably long period of time before he tossed her back in with Tony. Her body landed with a thud, displacing a small cloud of dust that glinted in the moonlight. He considered saying something, anything, to her—but what was there to say?

The lullaby of the howling wind ushered him to sleep.

oOo

Tony woke that morning to an unbearably stuffy room. August in Iraq was nothing like August in Washington, D.C. The sweat beaded on his forehead and rolled down his face, and he mourned the loss of water. His tongue already felt like sandpaper—he was on the fast track to death from dehydration.

When the sun reached the apex of its path and the day was at its hottest, they came for him.

They took him to the room next door, which was much more spacious than the tiny cell in which they were keeping him and the other prisoner. The only thing in the room was an old, wooden straight-backed chair, towards which the two men ushered him. One was clearly the boss, as he carried himself with an air of superiority. He let the other man, whose enormous muscles rippled under his clothing, tie Tony's ankles to the legs of the chair and his wrists to the arms. He couldn't help but notice that there were parts of the chair that were stained a dark crimson. After securing him, the burly man walked out of the room.

"How about we start with introductions," began the boss. He placed a large, dirty hand on his chest. "I am Raheem."

Tony stayed silent.

"And you are Agent DiNozzo, I've been told."

Tony was definitely surprised that he knew his name—that could only mean that Jenny had a leak somewhere.

"You are American, I take it?"

Tony could not be silent anymore; it was simply not in his nature. "God bless the USA." His voice had a lingering undertone of sarcasm.

"You see, this is fortunate for both of us," Raheem replied. At that moment, the other man returned holding a tripod and video camera. Tony straightened in the chair, realizing that this was probably the best outcome he could have hoped for.

It was a textbook ransom video, really: himself in exchange for two terrorists imprisoned in Gitmo. His pride took a bit of a blow, but it hardly mattered because in the end he had lived to see another day—bought Gibbs and Jenny and whoever else was tied up in this mess more time to orchestrate a rescue.

This bought them one week, to be exact. Seven days, beginning today. Seven days was an eternity compared to what he was expecting. He'd seen these things taken care of and wrapped up in a neat little blood-spattered bow in a matter of a few days.

He was optimistic.

oOo

The sunset on that first day of the countdown brought cool air, which was a relief. The hot, arid climate had drained him of energy very quickly. The fact that he was starving and incredibly thirsty did not help, either.

The woman on the other side of the room still lay with her back to him, unmoving. Again he almost tried to speak to her—perhaps she would appreciate the friendly human contact?—but he was so exhausted and there were no guarantees she even spoke English.

_Later_, he told himself.

A man came for her again that night. He was not one of the two that Tony had encountered this morning. He was tall enough that he had to stoop a bit to clear the doorway, and his face had deep furrows that gave him an evil disposition. His eyebrows were dark and wild, and when he frowned they nearly obscured his eyes. When he bent down to grab the woman by the arm, Tony noticed that his giant hands could wrap entirely around bicep with ease. He pulled her up off the floor, her thick, curly hair shrouding her face.

She did not fight him, and Tony felt a twinge of sadness at how many times this must have already occurred for her to be so apathetic to it.

The man froze, however, and released her arm. She fell back to the ground with a thud. His eyes glinted in the moonlight and his nose screwed up in disgust, as if it had detected some abhorrently distasteful scent. Tony fought the urge to call him a hypocrite—he found out firsthand this morning how little these men tended to personal hygiene, and he couldn't imagine that she smelled any worse than this giant of a man.

The man grumbled something in a language Tony did not understand and turned on his heels to leave the room, slamming the door on the way out. The footsteps faded down the corridor, and Tony wondered if he would be back.

Looking over at the woman, he found that even in the low lighting he could make out miniscule movements. Perhaps he was imagining it, but it seemed that her usually still body was shaking ever so slightly. He felt a pang in his heart, the desire to comfort her, but he had a feeling that more hands on her bruised body was the last thing she wanted.

Tony heard a crescendo of footsteps, slower in cadence than they were when the man was leaving; when he opened the door Tony understood why. He was carrying a huge wooden basin of water. He sat it down just inside of the small room, the water sloshing over the edges and reflecting the bright moonlight.

His enormous hand found the woman's tiny arm, yanking her towards the basin. He grabbed the back of her neck and violently forced her head into the murky water. Tony's back straightened, his teeth grinding and his hands forming tight fists.

Pockets of air escaped her desperate submerged mouth and made horrid _blub blub _sounds as they reached the surface. She fought against the man holding her under at first, but even then it was a feeble attempt. It seemed as though her strength, her fight, had left her long ago. Her efforts died as the last bubble broke the surface, making hardly a noise.

She had been under for too long. Tony was shaking now, eyeing the man's malicious face with fury.

"Stop." His voice was tight and low—he tried very hard to keep it under control. If the man heard, he made no movement to indicate that he did.

"_Stop_," Tony repeated, his voice less regulated this time. When he was not acknowledged yet again, the seething anger and fear erupted and his protests climaxed in a furious yell.

"_**You're killing her!"**_ His cry echoed off of the cinder block walls, reverberating in his eardrums. His body was shaking as adrenaline coursed through his veins, nails digging into the palm of his hand—he was _oh so very close _to snapping and intervening, despite the terrible odds. He would not let this woman be murdered not five feet away from him.

The man looked at Tony for the first time, and had the audacity to look merely _annoyed_. He yanked the woman's head out of the basin by her hair, which from what Tony could see in the low light was plastered every which way on her head, veiling her face. The man roughly threw her down onto the hard-packed dirt floor. She was coughing now, her entire body seizing up as she tried to expel the water from her lungs. They were violent hacks, ones that brought up all too recent memories of blue-tinted quarantine and inevitable death.

The man picked up the basin, dumped the water on her convulsing body, and left the room.

Molten hatred coursed through Tony's body—he could not sit on the sidelines any longer. He left his spot against the wall opposite the door, scooting a few feet so that he sat next to her. She lay face down on the ground, her body wracking violently.

"It's okay," he whispered, pulling her gently into his lap. She continued to sputter, her forehead resting on his thigh. Her fingers knotted in his shirt, grasping it tightly as if she was trying to pull herself out of some imagined ocean. "_You're okay_." He gently laid his hand on the back of her head, running his fingers through her wet hair. Besides comforting lies and consoling gestures, there was not much he could give her. Meanwhile, her body tried desperately to expel the water she'd taken in. Every now and then, in between frame-wracking coughs, her body would seize up and she would heave, her stomach convulsing. Nothing ever came up, and Tony wondered how close she was to starving to death.

It took a few minutes for her system to recover from such a close brush with death. Her breathing became slower and less ragged, and he felt her tense muscles relax. Even through the thick material of his cargo pants, he could feel her hot, shallow breaths on his leg, in deep contrast to the cold night air.

"There'ya go," he muttered. Under his hand, her neck turned so that she laid the side of her head on his leg. Looking down, he noticed that her wet hair, freezing now due to the frigid night air, still stuck to and obscured her face. His mother's voice floated back to him, recounting cautionary tales of the perils of wet hair in cold climates. He wasn't sure if it was because of this or because of simple curiosity, but with a tender hand he pulled the soaked tendrils away and smoothed them off to the side. And when he finally focused his eyes on _her…_

It was dark, but he swore it was her. He _swore._

_Phone sex, no. Uh, charades._

_Charades? _

_You've played._

_Never on the telephone._

There was much that was the same about her: the widow's peak, the gentle curve of her lips, dark, curly hair—but the similarities stopped there. Even in the dark room he could see the grey pallor of her once perfectly olive skin. She wore the evidence of her starvation in her sunken cheeks and pronounced collarbone (which sported hideous red marks that looked too much like bite marks for his comfort).

"_Ziva,"_ he breathed, his voice colored with disbelief. At this, her weary eyes immediately opened, and she looked up at him, startled. Astonishment settled in her expression when she placed his face, and he wondered if she could also smell coffee and pepperoni pizza, and hear far-away rain striking far-away pavement.

_Toda._

_Prego._

And in her deep brown eyes he found the biggest discrepancy between Ziva-then and Ziva-now. The provocative, stubborn, and dangerous nature of old had eroded during her stay here, leaving her with a vulnerability that made his heart ache.

For the longest moment she looked as if she was about to say something—anything—but in the end words seemed to elude her. He understood this fully, because there was not one thing he could think of saying that was not hideously inappropriate.

The Ziva David he remembered would not have stayed one second in their current position. When they first met, he deduced that self-reliance had been important to her, and she would have never allowed herself to find comfort in his arms like this.

But the Ziva David in his arms, exhausted not just in body but in spirit, did not move a muscle.

oOo

On the second day, he woke up to the door being pushed open and the man named Raheem grabbing Ziva, who was until that point asleep on the floor next to him. Tony's gut twisted into a knot as he watched her struggle to keep up with the pace her captor set, so as to not be dragged on the filthy ground like a ragdoll. The door slammed shut.

The sound travelled well enough from the adjacent room that he could hear talking, but not well enough that he could distinguish the words (which were most likely not in English anyway). It sounded like a one-sided conversation, the only participant he would assume being Raheem, judging by the oily timbre. A few minutes later, he stopped talking. It seemed as if he was waiting for something.

That something came in the form of halted, pained cries that made Tony swear under his breath and punch a wall.

He was pacing now, wearing a path into the dirt floor.

_So, come on. Who recruited you? Father? Uncle? Brother? Boyfriend?_

_Aunt, sister, lesbian lover…_

_You're good. You almost got me off the question… almost._

_I volunteered._

She'd been gone maybe twenty minutes when they tossed her back in with him. There were no visible signs of trauma, no bruises, no blood.

Save, of course, the tiny rivulet stemming from the pinprick in the crook of her left arm.

Whatever they'd given her, it was wearing off. The tiny whimpers that fell from her lips were an improvement to the sounds he had been hearing through the concrete wall. Her eyes were still wild, though, betraying that she was most likely in more pain than she was letting on.

He sat down, back against the wall, and pulled her into him. Her head fell gently against his shoulder, her entire right side pressed up against his torso. Ever so tenderly, he wrapped his arms around her and interlocked his fingers, his grip loose enough to not seem threatening but tight enough to feel secure. It was how his mother used to hold him when he would climb into her bed in the middle of the night, scared because there were shadows on his wall. It never failed to comfort him, and he hoped that now in Ziva's hour of need it could provide at least some semblance of comfort, even as she trembled and grit her teeth against the fire in her veins.

The shaking stopped eventually, and he could feel her breathing even out. Every now and then, however, she would shudder involuntarily. When that happened he had to force himself not to tighten his hold.

"You okay?" he asked once, not fully expecting an answer.

Her only response was to close her eyes and relax further into his aching chest.

oOo

They took her away from him again that night. One minute she was warm against him, and the next…

He did not sleep after that, and when she was brought back he had enough common sense to know to give her space. They both shivered their way through the rest of the night.

_Laila tov._

_Buona notte._

oOo

On the third day, he attempted conversation, figuring anything was better than the oppressive silence.

"How long've you been here?" he asked, leaning back against the wall with the window. She was on the opposite side of the cell, sitting near the door with her knees pulled to her chest. She'd been staring at the floor for hours, her gaze empty of emotion.

To his surprise, she looked up at his question. He detected a twinge of sadness in her expression as she shook her head—she did not know. Her silence worried him, nagged at the back of his mind which alerted him that _this is not the Ziva we know._

But he had already come to that conclusion, so he paid it no mind.

Her gaze fell back down to the ground, staring at that infinitesimal spot that seemed to capture her attention so fully. It was hard to miss the complete absence of hope in her gaze, and he surmised that she'd long ago let go of the notion that she would ever survive this.

"Hey," he whispered, "we're gonna get out of here." She looked up at him, but despite the conspiratorial smirk he offered and the certainty he expressed, she did not look like she believed him.

"I mean it," he added. "You remember Gibbs, right?" When she did not respond, he took it as a yes. "He doesn't give up. _Ever._ Especially on his people. I mean, you know that. You saw how he got after…"

Her eyes shifted, and he decided to steer clear of that particular event—which was, admittedly, difficult to do since the only time they met was because of it.

"And Jenny—you know Jenny?" At this, she looked back up at him, and for the first time he saw a flash of intrigue. _That's something,_ he mused—and then he remembered. "Oh yeah, you two knew each other before. I forgot. Hell, you probably know her better than I do. Actually I _know_ you know her better than I do. Well, in that case, you know how damn _stubborn_ she can be. Once she sets her mind to something, you'd better be sure you're not in her way." At that, the corner of her mouth twitched, encouraging him to keep talking; it was the best response he'd gotten from her yet.

"She was really distracted for these past few months. We all knew something was up. Then she came to me and asked me about this mission—all secretive about it, of course. She didn't even tell me half the story. But, you know how these things go. You get orders and you follow them, even if they end up landing you in some terrorist base in Iraq."

There was a quick flash of _something _in her eyes, and Tony knew that she understood that far too well.

"So I got here and it went South—but you _know_ Jenny's not just gonna leave it like that, if not because of me then because she's got some serious stake in how this whole thing goes down."

She looked away from him again, but this time instead of spacing out she seemed deep in thought. Then her lips parted and her eyebrows rose, as if she'd come to some sort of conclusion that Tony had missed.

"Anyway, you've just gotta hang on a little longer. We'll be out of here in no time, promise." And of course, Tony couldn't truthfully_ promise_ anything, but he did not feel guilty for his words.

For someone with nothing, there were worse things than a bit of potentially false hope.

oOo

On the fourth day, he realized what he'd missed.

They were sitting in much the same positions as before—the lack of food and water completely destroyed any desire to move—, and Tony's muddled thoughts had had drifted back to the threshold of the Director's office. The day she had given him the assignment she had called him upstairs—

_You've been distracted since she died; it'll do you some good to get away from here, to recollect your thoughts_

—and since Cynthia was on her lunch break he'd simply walked right in and caught the tail end of a telephone conversation. At the time he hadn't thought much of it, but in retrospect it might have been more important than any single sentence spoken in the debriefing that followed.

_This is my friend we're talking about—don't worry, I'm not giving up._

And it suddenly seemed so glaringly obvious.

"Of all the cells in all the terrorist camps in all the world, I get thrown in yours, huh?" he mumbled under his breath. She looked up at him from across the room, which really was only maybe eight feet away. "Except…" he continued, speaking a bit louder now, "it's never like in the movies, is it?" She responded simply with a small, sad smile.

He could almost feel the sting on the back of his head as the words _rule thirty-nine _echoed in his ears.

oOo

On the fourth day, he swore he was losing it.

The burly man had brought them two bottles of water the night before, which despite the strange brownish tint they both drained completely. He was still severely dehydrated, however, which apparently made him just a bit talkative.

"So then Probie threw up _all over the crime scene,"_ Tony recounted, finishing up his most recent anecdote. She seemed to be listening, but he couldn't be sure. Either way, he figured listening to his pointless stories was better for her mental health than staring at a spot on the ground all day, wallowing in whatever terrible thoughts her brain managed to conjure up. Sometimes her mouth would twitch in an almost-kinda-smile, and it only urged him on.

He made the mistake of mentioning Kate fairly early on. When he said her name, Ziva's eyes darkened perceptively and he swore he saw a flicker of remembered betrayal in them. From then on, he tried to keep the one-sided conversation on a path that wouldn't make her dwell more in her obviously troubled past.

Thinking about her past got him thinking about something else, however—where was Mossad in all of this?

_Ziva, Deputy Director David is on teleconference for you._

_Deputy Director David? Wouldn't be Daddy, would it?_

She'd been here _months,_ that much he knew from how long Jenny had been… preoccupied. He had last seen Ziva towards the end of May and it was now the end of August, meaning that she couldn't have been here any longer than three months.

_Months, _and still she remained here, out of sight and out of mind of the ones who _should _have loved her enough to save her.

oOo

On the fifth day, he began to worry.

He had to consider the fact that there were only two more days left on the clock. His stay of execution was frighteningly close to being over, and his confidence was faltering.

He tried very hard to keep Ziva in the dark when it came to his growing uneasiness; it would be cruel to so prematurely rip away any sense of hope he was responsible for giving her. However, he was never quite sure that he had been successful at this.

He spent that day much like he had the day before. He recounted stories of old cases and humorous pranks, explained to her in detail the plot of Forrest Gump, debated the best episode of Magnum P.I. and the pros and cons of dating a dentist. He told her about his preteen years spent terrorizing the administration at various boarding schools across the Eastern Seaboard, and when they sent him home, terrorizing his assorted stepmothers.

"It was like… the Parent Trap and Sound of Music wrapped into one. I mean, minus the frogs and the mattress in the lake, but still pretty damn close," he boasted. He was almost positive she did not care about anything he was saying, but he continued to talk for the sake of filling the silence.

They continued to drag her away in the dead of night, and she never fought them. Perhaps she had, in the beginning, but at some point she must have learned that the best way to fight was by not fighting at all. Then after they had finished they would dump her back into the room with her clothes disheveled and eyes so terribly vacant.

He had no idea how she could possibly sleep after that.

oOo

The sixth day brought catastrophe.

He heard the footfalls in the hallway getting louder and louder, each step sinking Tony's heart just a little bit more. Footsteps in the nighttime were a common occurrence, and while horrible they were at least predictable.

This was not predictable, and the various worst-case scenarios that ran through his head in those few seconds made the hairs on the back of his neck curl.

Right before the door opened, his gaze settled on Ziva, who was sitting in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest defensively. It struck him then how tired she must be to be letting her mask slip so far down—he could tell at a quick glance that she was afraid, just as he was.

The man who entered was the thickset one who had tied Tonto the chair that first day. He spared Tony not a glance, eyes searching predatorily for his target. He lifted her by the underarm as if she were made of feathers, and dragged her away without a word.

All there was left to do was wait.

There was no sound except footsteps from the adjoining room for a change. She was only gone for a few minutes when he heard the footsteps again and the door swung open. The man released her arm and she collapsed to the ground. He moved the few feet over towards her, and with a quick glance at her arm he found the small rivulet of blood the flowed from the injection site.

"Damn," he muttered, sighing heavily. A quick glance at her face revealed cloudy, unfocused eyes that were saturated completely with pain. Her lips were moving slightly, forming nearly inaudible words in what he assumed was Hebrew.

It was not physical pain this time, but emotional. He passed the next hour or so rocking her in his arms, trying futilely to coax her away from whatever she was seeing.

"It's not real, Ziva, I promise," he whispered to her, petting her hair gently and holding her tighter than was probably necessary.

It got worse before it got better.

"_Abba…"_ It was the first real word he'd heard from her mouth, and he'd gone to enough Sunday School classes to know what that one meant. He was almost certain now that it was her father that was to blame for this whole mess, and it only made him clutch her tighter as if to absorb some of her pain. How long had it been since someone had simply held her? Far too long, he suspected.

Occasionally she would grasp at empty air, reaching out for some illusion that disappeared just as she thought she had it within her grip. Sometimes she would struggle against him, for it was probably not his arms she was feeling around her—when that happened he simply relaxed his grip to calm her but continued his attempts to shelter her from harm.

It was very difficult to do when the harm came from within her own brain.

And then, there came a point where she began to cry. That was what broke him, seeing the little drops of water cut silent paths down her dirty cheeks. He wiped them away as they appeared, because _it was what his mother used to do_ and really he had no other experiences to draw from.

She continued to mumble all through this, words so strained that they were barely words at all. One word that kept popping up was Tali.

_I lost my little sister Tali in a Hamas suicide bombing… she was sixteen and the best of us. _

He could not possibly understand all of the monsters that lurked under her bed, but he had a feeling that most of them had been let loose by whatever hallucinogen those sadists had pumped into her veins.

Gibbs had had McGee look her up after she appeared in their squadroom on that rainy afternoon. What little information that had been available painted a horribly tragic picture of what her life had been like up to that point. Her young life had been punctuated by deaths of loved ones, and he could only speculate what it had been like growing up with the Deputy Director of Mossad as a father. And now she was here, crying in the arms of a man she hardly knew, mourning all those she'd lost and reliving unspeakable pain… helplessly waiting to be saved. He had a feeling that if Death arrived before rescue did, she would not shed a tear.

She was only twenty-three years old.

oOo

By nightfall, she still had not recovered from the drug.

The crying and trembling and mumbling had eventually stopped, and from what he could tell she was no longer hallucinating. However, she was fundamentally absent. While he was grateful that her eyes no longer held the pain he'd witnessed before, he was seriously concerned, for her eyes held _nothing._ They were unfocused and blank.

They reminded Tony of the eyes of a corpse.

The important thing was, however, that she was still breathing. He was no doctor, but he had a feeling that this was only temporary, some sort of after effect of the drug.

And then it hit him like a train—this could very well be his last night.

Tomorrow made a week since his ransom video was sent, and so far no rescue had materialized. He leaned his head back against the wall behind him, closing his eyes against the flood of emotions, letting them wash over him.

At some point that night, she became just as much of a comfort to him as he was to her. She made no effort to move from his arms; her muscles had gone slack long ago. He was content to let her sleep curled up against his chest. When the air outside was still and quiet, he could hear her heart beating, which for some strange reason helped him deal with the fact that there was a good chance he would die tomorrow.

God, please don't let him die tomorrow.

He was only human, and he was so very afraid. He had faced death hundreds of times in his life, and so far he'd been nothing but triumphant. At some point, though, the penny had to drop. Really, with his hero-complex and annoying personality it was a miracle he'd survived this long.

Still, he did not want to die, and he was infinitely grateful that he had her to hold onto through that long night.

oOo

The seventh day came without any sort of fanfare. The sun rose in the exact same way it had the day before, and come evening it would set once again.

He made his peace with it, relatively speaking.

When the light of day dawned, the early morning sun reached out to touch Ziva's face. All it did, however, was enunciate how emaciated she looked and emphasize her coma-like state. She was still virtually unresponsive, he found, and she did not seem to register a word he said. But she was moving a little now, blinking when necessary and shifting positions periodically.

Then came the footsteps, each one like a tick of the clock counting down the remaining seconds of his life.

Raheem threw open the door—it swung on its hinges and made a loud noise as it struck the wall. In his arms, Tony felt Ziva jump.

"Time is up, _Agent DiNozzo," _Raheem growled, crossing the tiny room in one large stride and yanking her off of Tony's lap and tossing her out of the way. He was by no means gentle, and she landed with a dull thud against the back wall.

Tony, wanting to at least head to his death with dignity, tried to stand on his own. It had been a while, however, and his legs trembled underneath. Raheem, holding a zip tie and a burlap sack, roughly spun him around so that he could secure Tony's hands behind his back.

With his back to Raheem and the doorway, Tony was facing Ziva, who had somehow managed to sit herself up on the floor. He studied her face, memorizing every aspect. Despite the grime, malnourishment, and unfocused gaze, she was still one of the most beautiful women he'd ever met. It would be the last thing he'd see, he decided. He only hoped that Jenny would not be too late to save her, as well.

He gritted his teeth as the too-tight plastic dug into his wrists. He heard the rustle of the burlap sack and soaked in life one last time before it was placed over his head and he could see no more. Raheem moved in between Tony and Ziva before turning his prisoner around to face the door and gave him a shove forward between the shoulder blades.

And then the captor began to exclaim something, but was cut off by a deafening, unexpected gunshot that echoed off the barren walls. Out of instinct, Tony dropped to the ground, then as quickly as possible shook the bag off of his head.

He turned around to find Ziva sitting in much the same place as she had been a few seconds ago, the smoking gun in her hand aimed at the terrorist lying between them, blood spilling from an angry wound right between his eyes, the holster at his ankle empty.

She looked directly up at Tony, and in a rare moment of complete lucidity, spoke to him for the first time.

"I am sorry, for this."

He knew she was not referring to the terrible man dead between them, but for all that had happened in the last week and all that would happen as a direct consequence of her actions.

Because when she'd pulled that trigger, she had not saved him, not really—she had only condemned herself.

However, he could not fault her for her actions; in her place he would have done the same thing. She had suffered here long enough, and he knew she was ready for it to end. Killing one of her tormentors had just been a bonus she was not expecting.

God, he bet it felt good.

"Never apologize," he told her, offering a final sad smile. Turning his back, he grabbed the knife from Kareem's belt and cut the zip tie binding his hands. He knew people heard the gunshot, and they only had moments before more men arrived. "What do you say we go down with a fight, Officer David?" At that, a fire was ignited in her eyes and she gave a nod of her head, raising the gun—which had maybe four bullets left at best—and aiming it at the door.

Then all there was left to do was wait.

oOo

They arrived at the eleventh hour, in a hailstorm of bullets and shouts and wind from helicopter blades so strong that Tony could feel the gusts through the tiny, barred window. He barked out a relieved and disbelieving laugh when he first heard the rapid gunfire and shouting in a language he actually understood. A large, elated grin spread on his face, cracking his dry lips.

Ziva's eyes were wide and uncomprehending as he choked on his relief. He grabbed her shoulders, giving her a gentle shake and telling her _I told you they'd come_ with a mouth that couldn't seem to stop smiling.

They were not going to die today.

He could see her spacing out, becoming less and less lucid. Her gaze kept returning to the corpse of her tormentor lying a few feet from her in a pool of his own blood. Tony wondered if perhaps her brain was going into overload—this was a lot to take in, after all.

There were footsteps in the hallway again, fast enough that the person must have been running. Just in case, Tony grabbed the gun from her loosening hand and stood, barrel aimed squarely at the door.

It swung open, and Tony had never been so relieved to see those tan camouflage uniforms in his life. He lowered the gun immediately.

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS," he identified himself.

"And the woman?"

"Mossad Officer Ziva David. Don't think she can walk, I might need some help."

One of the men helped him hoist her up so that her arms were draped across their shoulders. Her mind was slipping, he could tell.

"Hang in there, Ziva. The cavalry's here, we're goin' home." He reached up and gave the hand resting on his shoulder a reassuring squeeze; he swore he felt her squeeze back.

And onward they went.

_To be continued_


	2. Part II

Part II

It was his voice that brought her out of the dark. Slimy and malicious, it punched a jagged hole right through the intangible barrier between her mind and reality. This barrier served as a shield, insulation from the horror occurring outside of its protective walls; even though it dulled her senses and left her vulnerable, she mourned the loss.

Goosebumps rose on her twig-like arms as his words reached her, and they echoed in her ears long enough for her sluggish brain to piece together their meaning.

"Time is up, Agent DiNozzo."

Slowly, the world around her began to take shape. As her senses returned to their usual state of hyperactivity, she took stock of her surroundings for the first time since the previous evening. The pain returned with a vengeance and it felt as if she had a hole where her stomach should have been. Her throat burned with a familiar longing for moisture.

With a start she realized there were _arms_ around her, gentle arms of a gentle man whose death sentence had just rolled off their captor's sharp tongue, announced it as if it was a statement about the weather or the hour of day.

Then she was torn away and landed with an _oof_ on the patch of sunlit concrete near the high-up window. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, aiding her atrophied muscles and allowing her to sit up. By the time she had accomplished what was truly a monumental feat, the American had been yanked to his feet and was in the process of having his hands secured behind his back. In his green eyes, Ziva found a remarkable bravery, at par with some of the bravest men she'd known, but also hints of fear. It empowered her, for as the sack was thrown carelessly over his head she saw the eyes of a noble man heading to his death.

And _oh,_ how the jealousy consumed her, its wicked green flame licking at her already charred heart and drying any sympathy for him. All she felt was anger that it was _him and not her_ under that burlap sack. The injustice of it all was appalling, for she had been waiting so much longer than him for such a gift.

As her captor turned to force Tony out of the room, the bottom hem of his cargo pants rode up in such a way that she noticed a quick, blinding flash of silver at his ankle. There was no internal debate, no weighing of consequences, because in the end she knew there was only one possible outcome, and she welcomed it with open arms. So, in one fell movement, she grabbed the gun, aimed, pulled back the hammer, and signed her death warrant in the foul blood that spurted from her tormenter's head.

The life seeped from his astonished eyes and nothing had ever felt so good.

It did not take long for Tony to shake the bag off of his head, and his shocked gaze met hers as he discovered what she had done.

"I am sorry, for this." She did not quite realize she'd said the words until they tumbled out of her mouth. Her voice, hoarse and lifeless, sounded foreign to her ears, reminding her of the person who she once was and would be no more. It was that woman who spoke, her words unsanctioned by the body which she no longer had any claim to. The words belonged to a person who still had enough _human_ left to feel a pang of guilt at her actions—for it was _her_ fault that Tony came here, suffered here, and would die here. With that bullet she had not changed his fate; rather she had ensured that his sacrifice would be in vain.

"Never apologize," he replied, and the dying woman in her sobbed because this gentle, forgiving man was going to die and it was _all her fault._ "What do you say we go down with a fight, Officer David?"

She had not been Officer David in a long time, but she nodded her head and aimed the glinting silver weapon at the door with steady hands, intent on taking as many men with her as she could.

But then there were shouts and a _whoomp whoomp_ that beat along with her throbbing head, and Tony was laughing and grabbing her shoulders and _nothing made sense_ because she could hear the gunshots but no bullet had found its way to its proper home in her chest. There was no blood and no pain and she was _indignant_ that it was taking so long.

The door to the cell opened and the world began to bleed away around her, colors running together like molten wax, while words echoed and ran together until made incomprehensible. There was still no pain, but as she viewed the world as if through a funhouse mirror she reasoned that adrenaline must be numbing her senses. She could not feel the bullet, but she knew it was there and she knew she was dying. Cool relief washed over her.

She was being moved now, but the world around her was chaotic and distorted, like her brain could not quite figure out what it was seeing. There were words being shouted, spoken with sharp degrees of urgency, but she had no hope of deciphering their meaning.

It was taking too long. Death was not supposed to be this slow, this chaotic, this _overwhelming._

The colors had turned darker now, and she briefly wondered if this was what a coffin looked like from the inside. There was still shouting and the _whoomp whoomp_ noise was louder than ever, as if it was right over top of her, and she felt the distant sensation of being lifted up, up, up. She knew in her heart that this ascent would end in the arms of God.

She found that God's arms felt strangely familiar—and for that matter, so did his voice.

"_We're taking her back to DC, Boss."_

She did not understand the meaning, she was much too far gone for that, but she recognized its cadence and timbre. It soothed her.

"_Well yeah, DiNozzo."_

This new, gruff voice struck a chord within her, and in front of her unseeing eyes danced the remembered image of her brother, as clear as day, with a jagged hole in his forehead.

"_I just wanted to make sure—"_

"_Jenny's orders. Says David needs to explain her involvement in the mission."_

"_Gibbs, you know as well as I do that she __**is**__ the mission! And do you have any idea what she's been through? The last thing she needs is someone __**interrogating **__her!"_

"_Relax. Jenny's got no intention of doing that. It's a cover, she just wants to see her friend."_

The far-away words made no sense, but the distant feeling of a hand squeezing hers _did,_ and with that the _whoomp whoomp_ faded and the universe finally gave way to the long-awaited black.

oOo

She woke up slowly, without any sort of memory falling asleep in the first place. For the past few months, sleep had been a rare gift that, when it did come, was broken and light, almost always accompanied by a cold, hard floor and a sickness in the pit of her stomach at the events that had just transpired.

But now sleep had been suddenly redefined, its definition reverting back to the way it was before her capture. Sleep meant a warm, soft bed and a deep, peaceful black, not to be disrupted by slamming wooden doors and men with large, rough hands. And of course, because she was Ziva and _nothing for her could ever be easy, _she panicked at the drastic change to her normal.

Her brain fought hard to stitch together the snippets of information it was receiving, trying to give her some sort of clue as to what she would be up against when her eyes opened. She recognized the potent, sickly smell of bleach and the relentless whirring and beeping and steady _drip drip_ near her right ear, but the only solution that jumped into her mind made no sense at all. She was hallucinating, she must have been, because everything she ever was or ever would have been had dried and shriveled up in that desert.

There _never _was going to be a future for her beyond that, and she had come to accept that long ago.

Every expansion of her lungs brought her closer to reality and the throbbing pain in her head and heart. Her eyelids no longer felt like anvils—they opened slowly and lazily, exposing her weary eyes to the bright white room. Eventually they adjusted to the drastic change in lighting and the space around her began to take shape.

It was a hospital, she decided, but the confusion as to how it was possible did not leave her. She felt the faintest sensation of déjà vu, although despite her efforts she could find no memory of falling unconscious or of any events that may have led to it.

And so she searched.

The television on the wall in the corner was muted, tuned to a news station where a woman with far too much make-up was telling the world of a headline that Ziva was far too tired to ponder. It was in English, however, and that simple fact provided a small clue. She blinked, the image of Agent DiNozzo swimming momentarily in front of her.

Perhaps she had underestimated him, after all.

But then she remembered Jenny Shepard and she had to force herself to breathe deeply through this sudden mess of emotions that all seemed to run along the lines of _undeserving undeserving undeserving._ Her hands trembled, and it prompted her to look down at her arm. There was something on her wrist, attaching her by a clear tube to the whirring and dripping machine at her right. Light bounced off of something metal, catching her eyes, and suddenly she was seeing not a clean white room but a dank brown cell decorated with specks ofcrimson. In front of her eyes danced a glinting, thin piece of metal that soon found home in the crook of her arm, providing a channel to feed liquid agony into her blue veins. It disappeared, clear and malicious, into her bloodstream and within seconds she was flooded.

Something was crawling down her arm, biting and scratching and leaving a trail of molten fire in its wake. It was joined soon by another of its kind, and soon they began replicating exponentially until every square centimeter of her skin was ablaze. This was how it must feel to burn at the stake, she decided, writhing and fighting but never able to escape the raging inferno. She began to cry then, hopelessly and tirelessly, the tears evaporating and sizzling as they ran down her charred cheek.

Suddenly, mercifully, the searing blue flames began to turn orange, cooling until she could feel absolutely nothing at all. She was underwater, she decided numbly, submerged in a black, sensation-less pool.

And then she let herself drown.

oOo

"Hi, I'm looking for someone. I'm pretty sure she's on this floor, but can you tell me which room?"

The nurse at the desk, whose name tag read _Karen,_ looked up at him and he pulled out his most charming smile. "Name?"

"Hers or mine?"

"Hers," she replied, seeming more than a little annoyed.

"Ziva David," Tony answered, and then proceeded to spell out both names twice as the woman pecked away at the keyboard. She had just pressed enter when he jumped, startled by a loud noise which he soon identified to be an alarm. Eyes wide, he watched as the nurse sprang from her seat and ran down the hall. A few other nurses from the station trotted after her, leaving him to simply look after them with a concerned and nervous heart.

And then there was a scream and he was moving.

It was her scream—he recognized it immediately by the absolute terror and pain it held. He catapulted towards the room with the open door, not stopping until he saw her, then stood frozen in the doorway, hand grasping the frame as he looked at her sunken face.

The pillow and sheets seemed to swallow her whole, leaving her looking much smaller and much frailer than he remembered. Her delicate features were screwed up in what could only be pain, her burning eyes seeing everything and nothing as they darted around the room. Her tiny hands were as restless as her eyes, frantically scratching and gouging the skin on her arms, neck, cheeks. Her long and dirty nails came away red, the same color as the long thin marks that now decorated her visible skin. Her chest heaved over and over again in a way that reminded him of the day she almost drowned, the feeble bellows she called lungs expanding erratically against her visible cracked ribs. Breaths came out in frightened little pants, accompanied every so often by low whines that elicited a growl from somewhere deep within him.

She screamed one last time, and then, slowly, it ended. Her motions calmed and her breathing evened and her panicked eyes glazed over and stilled. She stared blankly at the white wall as blood ran down her chin and neck, into the hollow created by her prominent collarbone. It was all too familiar.

His feet, which before felt like they were encased in lead, were suddenly moving almost without his consent. He pushed past the now-still nurses and sat down at her left side, grasping her hand hard with his right and wiping the blood off her face. Gentle fingers pushed dirty, curly hair out of her eyes, his thumb moving back and forth on her bony, scratched cheek. Slowly, as if the air were made from molasses, he leaned forward and down and brought his forehead to rest against her hot scalp.

"We're safe now," he breathed into her ear. "You don't have to shut down. Nothing's going to hurt you."

He waited. Seconds turned to minutes with no response. But eventually, after all but one nurse had quietly filed out, he felt the slightest sensation of her hand twitching in his, what he recognized as a feeble attempt at a squeeze. He let out a breath.

"We're okay," he promised, running his thumb back and forth against her palm. She squeezed again, harder this time, and when he looked back into her eyes she was looking _at_ him, not through him. He pulled back, letting his left hand linger just a moment longer before sliding from her face to her neck to her shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the last nurse leave.

"Good morning," he greeted, trying his very best to make this as normal as possible. She swallowed loudly and licked her lips, inhaling as if she was about to reply; instead she looked away and breathed out slowly through her nose. Her eyes wandered tentatively towards the IV, but they darted away the second she saw it. Her jaw tightened and she looked back at him, fighting to keep her expression neutral. She inhaled deeply, and this time opened her mouth.

"Where…?" Her voice comes out hoarse and strangled. He immediately reached over to the clear cup of water sitting on the table to her left and handed it to her. She accepted it with trembling hands but looked at it as if she hadn't a clue what to do with it.

"If you don't drink it, I will," he told her, a lopsided smile appearing on his face. Her hand was shaking so badly as she brought the cup to her cracked lips that the liquid almost sloshed over the side, but he figured it was important that she did _something_ herself. The Ziva he remembered would not have stood for being fed water like a baby. She swallowed again, less noisily this time.

"Where am I?"

"Walter Reed Hospital," Tony replied.

"America?" She seemed a little surprised at this.

"Yep."

"Why?"

"DC missed you," he joked, but upon seeing her serious expression he gave her a real answer. "Director Shepard's orders." She gave the most infinitesimal of nods then opened her mouth as if to reply, but hesitated, looking down at her lap and biting her lip.

"And Director David?" The question came out halted and strained as she continued averting her gaze to keep him from seeing any emotion that might or might not flit across it when he answers.

Tony's face hardened; he did not want to be the bearer of bad news. "No word, Ziva, I'm sorry." She blinked and took a deep breath, her shoulder lifting in a tiny shrug.

"To expect anything else would be foolish, yes?" Her voice wavered and betrayed her.

"It shouldn't be," he responded, shaking his head and tapping the back of her hand in a feeble attempt at comfort.

"It is what it is." She offered him a small smile, a sad one that was so obviously forced that it made his breath catch. For the first time, he could not think of one thing to say. He let the silence fall over them, turning his head to stare out the fourth floor window at the bright blue sky. It seemed incredibly ill-fitting, but it served as a reminder that below him thrived a city of people whose lives moved along parallel to but independently from his—people whose lives did not consist of torture and betrayal and a woman broken in more ways than one.

The shadows moved, getting shorter and shorter as the sun climbed higher in the sky. He looked back eventually to find her eyes closed and breathing even. A nurse, the same one that he had asked about Ziva's room number, entered and began taking out the IV.

"You know, that's happened twice already."

Tony looked at her, surprised. "What has?"

"Her waking up like that. The night shift nurse I took over for told me she'd woken up in a panic two times while he was on duty, once in the evening around six and again around three am. Was never this bad, though, I don't think. She didn't hurt herself, at least."

Tony gulped. He should have been there. The room he had been staying in was just down the hall. After determining that the only physical issue he had was dehydration and malnutrition, they'd hooked him up to an IV to get fluids and nutrients back into his bloodstream. He'd been discharged by the end of the day and Gibbs had convinced him to go home and take a shower, eat a good meal, and get some rest. _She'll still be here in the morning, DiNozzo,_ he'd said.

Turned out that he should not have listened to Gibbs.

"But," the nurse continued, "the night shift did tell me that after the panic attack she… calmed completely, stared into the distance, like she did earlier. Only he said they couldn't get her out of it, she just went on being unresponsive. Whatever you did… Well, it worked." And with that the nurse left, leaving him alone with just his thoughts and a splintered woman.

Taking a deep breath, Tony ran a hand through his already messy hair. As he looked down upon Ziva's sleeping, peaceful face, he felt a protectiveness blossom in his heart. He knew that he was responsible for her, now. He needed to be there every time she felt the need to bury herself in the recesses of her own mind, to bring her back and help her heal. After all, no one else seemed to be stepping up to the plate, least of all her father. Something within him—most likely his damn hero complex—had awoken when he realized just how abandoned she was.

He gave himself a moment to remember how she used to be. She'd been indestructible, with toned muscles and fierce eyes and an indelible confidence that only exacerbated her stubborn will. Now, however, everything about her screamed _broken, _from the way she held her head and shoulders to her so frequently empty gaze; from her tiny, fragile bones to her uncharacteristic reticence.

He let himself compare and contrast the two for a final time before casting away the notion entirely. He knew that the last thing Ziva David needed was someone to tell her how far she had fallen. From that point forward, he decided, he would concentrate solely on helping her get better.

The sun rose higher and she slept on.

oOo

By the time she woke again the sky outside her window had already turned a deep shade of orange. Her sleepy eyes noticed the silhouette of someone sitting in front of the pane and she blinked, realizing that the petite frame and smooth head of hair did not belong to Agent Tony DiNozzo.

"Jenny?" Ziva muttered, voice thick and hoarse from sleep and months of disuse. The woman in the chair smiled gently and leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees, the sunset light bouncing off her head and making her hair redder than Ziva remembered. "Where is Tony?" she asked, an uneasy feeling she could not explain settling in the pit of her stomach.

"I sent him home, told him to get some rest, write up a report. How are you feeling?" Jenny's eyes roamed over her features, concern and sympathy swirling together in her bright grey irises. Ziva looked away, having no desire to see her broken self reflected in the eyes of a friend, especially one who had known her as someone else entirely—someone stronger, braver, _whole_r. She sat up straighter, holding back a wince as she agitated her bruised ribs.

"I am fine," Ziva lied, but before she had even finished Jenny began to shake her head. She pulled the chair closer to Ziva's bedside and sat her hand on top of her friend's.

"You don't have to pretend for me," Jenny replied, her voice soft and reassuring. "I know you've gone through hell." Ziva gulped, looking down at the hand on top of her own. Tony's words floated back to her on a ghostly desert wind.

_So I got here and it went South—but you __**know**__ Jenny's not just going to leave it like that, if not because of me then because she's got some serious stake in how this whole thing goes down._

Ziva turned her hand over and grasped Jenny's back like a lifeline. She looked back up and their eyes met.

"I do not know how to… repay you, for this." She almost cringed at how small her voice sounded. Gone were the days when she would loudly and confidently say whatever came to mind. That stubborn bravado and straight-backed boldness had melted away in the desert sun; ran down her ravaged skin and pooled at her feet; mingled with dirty crystal tears and warm, dark blood that oozed from her veins even as the man who shared it slept on, safe in a pool of sheets and blankets while his daughter slept in a pool of herself.

"This isn't about being _even,_ Ziva. This is about you being my friend," Jenny responded. "Although if it makes you feel any better, you took a bullet for me in Cairo, so technically we are even now." Ziva fidgeted nervously, unable to shake the years and years of experience and training that told her there was _always _ulterior motive. But she trusted Jenny, so she swallowed back her disbelief and tried her very hardest to sound brave when she replied.

"I never asked… for anyone to save me."

Jenny raised her eyebrows. "Are you saying that you'd rather I hadn't?"

And oh, what a question that was. Silence fell and Ziva looked away, once again unable to deal with her friend's searching gaze. She did not want her expression to betray an answer she did not have, because while she could not say yes, she could not deny it, either.

So she settled on a statement, one whose truth resonated in every brittle bone in her defeated body.

"I have _nothing_ left, Jenny." Her voice is thick and heavy and she shuts her eyes to conceal the salty water that comes with it. In the darkness behind the lids she sees her family—her mother, lying pale and still next to a whining and still monitor; her sister, the tiny and closed (they only ever found a charred toe, after all) casket being lowered forever into the dry ground; her brother, fallen in a growing pool of blood while a choked lullaby floats through the dead air and the metal object in her hand sears her skin.

Her father, handing her the orders and walking away forever.

And then she saw herself, watched on as a proud soldier was reduced to little more than a mangled, bloody pile of bones and torn flesh. The room smelled of death and shame and evaporated hope.

Evaporated _life._

Ziva opened her eyes, preferring that Jenny saw her tears than she herself saw the evidence of her own decimated life.

"We'll figure it out, Ziva." Jenny's eyes plead and search, drifting every so often to the furious self-inflicted gouges on Ziva's face. "You're not alone, not here."

The broken woman laid her head back against the pillow, looking up at the stained grid ceiling and fought to keep her eyes dry. A series of emotions, a blend of sadness and gratefulness and _something else she couldn't quite identify,_ swirled around in her shrunken, ever-aching stomach, and burned.

She did not trust her voice so she simply tightened her grip on Jenny's hand, and somehow it was enough.

oOo

Jenny left after the sun set, when the night shift nurse entered the room to ask if Ziva would like a shower. The Director took this as her cue to leave, placing a feather-light kiss on her friend's coarse hair and leaving with a promise that she would return soon.

It was almost too much and Ziva had to fight to pay attention to the nurse who had begun helping her from the bed. Every bone in her body protested as she swung her bony legs off the side and planted her bare feet firmly on the cold floor. She recoiled, unused to anything but baking, dusty concrete.

The nurse—Margaret, her pin said—did not comment as her patient struggled to stand. Ziva had not stood alone on her own two feet in more months than she cared to count. She had either been dragged or carried or slung, so her atrophied muscles nearly gave way under her body despite how much less weight they had to support now. Ribs and knees and muscles ached from exertion; her jaw ached from holding back frustrated tears as she was forced to lean on Margaret for help. Her father's voice echoed in her head, admonishing and critical and disappointed.

_You will never be good enough._

The bathroom door opened and Ziva was greeted by a skeleton.

It was the first time she had seen a mirror in months. She was never one to be vain, but her appearance made the ache in her jaw intensify. She was little more than skin and bones, fragile and pale and dressed in an oversized hospital gown that seemed to swallow her whole. Her arms were pallid twigs; her visible skin was decorated here and there with purple, finger-shaped bruises and long, fresh scratches. Her greasy hair was as lifeless as her eyes, parted in the middle and uneven from where they had hacked away with their vicious, blood-soaked knives.

She searched, but in that mirror Ziva David—the sharp end of the spear—was nowhere to be found. Forged in fire, she had been the best of the best, strong and keen and capable. But then she had been broken in half over the knee of her torturers, snapped in two and made useless.

In that mirror, she saw reflected back not a hardened _metsada_ assassin but a frightened, homeless girl who couldn't quite seem to grasp that she was alive.

So absorbed was she in these thoughts that she had hardly noticed Margaret turn on the bath faucet. Looking over, she saw the nurse test the water's temperature before pulling the lever. Steaming water instantly began to pour out from the showerhead. Ziva jumped.

The nurse helped her out of her gown and Ziva used her skinny arms to cover herself. There was a time when she would never have been so uncomfortable with her body—there was a time when she would have flaunted it for whichever purpose she deemed necessary—but now there were hand-shaped bruises and crescent bite-marks and little dark marks where she was used as an ashtray. Her knees shook, her bony body teetering. Margaret held out her arm for her patient to take; Ziva swallowed her pride and accepted.

The shaking only intensified as she stepped into the steady stream of water. She knew it should feel good, cleansing, relieving, but all she could feel was the relentless water pounding her face, getting in her nose and mouth and eyes. She spluttered.

"Is it too hot?" the nurse asked, but Ziva did not hear. She was a world away in a place where the only thing that existed was pain, half-panicked and half-relieved as a rough hand forced her throbbing head under the dirty water. She had struggled, then, but only for a few moments. It was not the most pleasant way to die, with burning lungs and a burning heart, but it was peaceful and quiet and _she just wanted it all to end._ She had exhaled, forcing the last of her oxygen up to the surface in hopes of speeding the process.

But she was only human after all, and eventually she inhaled desperately in a last futile chance to find _something to save her. _Her lungs filled with water.

There was someone yelling, calling to her, from beyond the blackness. She opened her eyes, finding a blur of hazy color. Then the pain began to fade until she was simply numb, staring straight ahead at a world that didn't quite seem to fit together.

oOo

There were arms around her once again, rocking her back and forth like her mother had done so long ago to chase away nightmares. Gentle hands were running up and down her arm, mindful of the bruises and scratches but still comforting. Something throbbed under her ear—it was a steady heartbeat that quickened almost imperceptibly as she opened her eyes.

"Ziva?" His voice rumbled through his chest, tickling her ear. She pulled away, looking up into his mossy eyes for an explanation.

"What…" The word came out like a squeak, so she cleared her throat. "What happened?"

"You, uh, had a panic attack in the shower, earlier," Tony told her, and the pained look in his eyes was evidence that he had made the connection to the night when he had discovered who she was; the night he'd held her while she sputtered and coughed up the water from her lungs; the night he provided the first gentle human contact she had encountered in a miserably long time. "Then you just kind of… spaced out."

She frowned. "Why did you come back? I thought… I thought Jenny sent you home."

"She did," Tony admitted, "But one of the nurses called me. Jenny left them with a list of numbers of people they should call if anything happens."

There was a part of her that wanted desperately to scream _but why you?—_she forced it down, not wanting to injure the man with the eager eyes that only wanted to help.

"Thank you for coming." Her voice came out soft and more vulnerable than she would have liked, but it had to be said. It bewildered her that he would come so readily to her aid—that he would leave his home in the middle of the night to drive to the hospital and comfort the cracked shell of a woman he hardly even knew. "You did not have to."

He just pulled her into his chest once again, settling back into the hospital bed. She felt his muscles relax and tried very hard to do the same. It was late, and they both needed sleep.

Just as she drifted off, she heard the words_ yes, I did _rumble softly in her ear.

oOo

He woke to a strangled cry and desperate hands clawing at his shirt. She was fighting him, eyes wide and wild but unseeing. There was pain written plainly on her features as she struggled against the phantom hands of dead men who were still very much alive in her mind. Alive and cruel.

"Shh, Ziva, it's not real," he whispered, stroking her hair and holding her tighter. He knew that if she got out of his grasp she might do something that could hurt not only him but herself as well, but he still hated being the person who restricted her freedom. "I promise you it's not real."

She began to go limp then, her efforts to break free dying and her head settling back into his chest. At first he rejoiced but then remembered the how these things usually progressed.

"Come on, Ziva, don't leave me now," he coaxed, rubbing her back in gentle, calming circles. "You don't need to block it out anymore." Looking down he saw that her eyes were glazed and he nearly cursed. She was lost in herself once again.

It did not last very long, however, and he gave a sigh of relief when he felt her fidget in his arms. He loosened his grip and tucked a lock of her curly hair behind her ear.

"You okay?"

"Fine," she exhaled, her hot breath warm against his chest. He did not believe her but he let it slide.

"You gonna go back to sleep?" he asked, taking note of the early morning light gathering outside the window.

"No," she responded, taking a deep breath and pulling out of his arms. He took the hint and scooted so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Ziva's voice was louder than he had heard it since her rescue when she responded _come in._

The door opened to reveal a tall, middle aged man in a white coat. "Hello, my name is Dr. Aiken. You must be Miss David?"

"Yes."

"Pleased to meet you." He walks towards the end of her bed and looks at Tony. "And you are?"

"Agent Tony DiNozzo, NCIS."

"Agent DiNozzo, if it's okay with you, I'd like to discuss with Miss David her treatment options and our findings. If you don't mind…" He trailed of, inclining subtly with his head towards the hallway. Tony nodded.

"I—"

"He can stay," Ziva announced sharply, halting Tony's steps immediately. Surprised, Tony offered her a tiny smile and sat down in the chair by the window. Dr. Aiken nodded and took a cursory glance at her chart at the end of the bed before opening his own folder.

"The X-rays we took when they brought you in indicate that you have a few fractured ribs, but beyond that no broken bones. We put you on an IV for a few days to get nutrients and water back into your system—you were severely dehydrated and suffer from malnutrition." The doctor's eyes darted from Ziva's stoic expression to Tony, hesitating in the face of the words he now had to say. "We sent a blood sample to the lab and found that you're clear of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. We also know that you are not pregnant."

Tony tensed, despite the good news. While he harbored no illusions about what had happened to her those nights they dragged her from the cell, it was difficult to hear the words out loud. He glanced over at Ziva to gauge her reaction only to find her just as tense as he was. The doctor continued.

"However, we did find something concerning." The words were enough to make Tony's heart miss a beat. "There are traces of certain chemicals in your blood. It appears to be a cocktail of various neurotoxins. We think they might be the cause of the seizures."

At this, Ziva's eyes went wide. "Seizures?"

"_Neurotoxins?"_

"Yes. These panic attacks and night terrors you've been having usually end in you spacing out, eyes getting cloudy, becoming unresponsive, right?"

"Yeah," Tony answered for her, "But I thought seizures meant you start… spasming. She doesn't do that."

"Seizures can have various outward effects, including just going still and unresponsive," the doctor explained. "We have reason to believe that whatever chemicals you have been injected with have caused some brain damage which is leading to these seizures."

A nauseous feeling flooded Tony's stomach at the words. "Not permanent damage, though, right? I mean it will heal?" Protectiveness overwhelmed him and he was unable to stop himself from leaning forward and clasping her hand in his. Her face was neutral but her hand was shaking.

"It might," the doctor responded warily, "or it very well might not. We do not know for sure that she has brain damage, though. The nurses told me that she seems to respond to you, Agent DiNozzo, that you can bring her out of these seizures before they run their full course. This leads me to believe that Ziva might not have epilepsy at all, but something else, called PNES."

"PNES?" Ziva's voice was high and squeaky.

"Psycogenic nonepileptic seizures. Meaning that the seizures might be a result of a psychological condition."

"So she might not have brain damage?"

Dr. Aiken took a breath. "It's possible. We'll have to do some tests. I can schedule a PET scan for you today, Ziva, so we can take a look at how your brain is functioning and see if you have damage or not. We have some of the best neurologists in the country here, and they'll get to the bottom of this. I also think it would be best if you saw a psychiatrist. It's likely that you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of the nightmares and panic attacks, and it makes it more likely that you have PNES and not epilepsy. You'll need a doctor to prescribe you pills if that's the case. I can make an appointment with one this week, if you like?"

Tony looked over to Ziva when Dr. Aiken fell silent, finding her completely speechless. All of that information left her dazed and overwhelmed. When she looked over to Tony, he saw a hint of fear and uncertainty shining through a crack in her façade. He gave her a small nod of encouragement, and eventually the word _okay_ managed to slide through her lips.

Dr. Aiken nodded. "There's an open slot at nine, it's yours if you want it. That's in about an hour and a half, and we need to administrate a tracer into your bloodstream an hour before the scan."

"Okay," she replied uneasily.

"You can't eat anything until after the scan, so we'll hold your breakfast until you get back. A nurse should be in in about a half hour to give you the tracer. I'll try to have the results back to you by tomorrow, because we want to start treating this as soon as possible."

With that, he bade goodbye and good luck and walked out the door, leaving a shell-shocked woman and her protector alone in loaded silence.

oOo

Tony realized fairly quickly that he was unable to tolerate the oppressive quiet. He had opened his mouth a few times to say something, _anything,_ but what was there to say?

Ziva just stared blankly at the wall with the eyes of a woman who had not really remembered how to live. It reminded him of the first few days in that cell in the Iraqi desert where neither of them said a word, and it came to be too much.

"I'm gonna run down to the cafeteria and get some coffee, stretch my legs. I'll be back in a few minutes, okay?"

She nodded, and surely he was imagining the anxiety in her eyes as he walked out the doorway?

The coffee tasted like shit, no matter how much sugar and creamer he stirred into it. Gibbs would never survive it here, he thought, smirking.

He took the stairs back up to the third floor and when he finally arrived his legs burned from sudden use—he hadn't moved for a week, after all—and his lungs burned from the still-lingering effects of the plague a few months ago.

He arrived back in her room about the same time the nurse did. Ziva straightened the second they appeared in the doorway. She seemed conflicted—relieved to see him, worried to see the nurse.

"I'm going to put the IV back in so I can administer the tracer," the nurse informed her. Tony could not miss the way her coffee eyes went wide at the sight of the cotton swab and needle. She gulped so loudly that he could hear it from where he stood at the foot of her bed.

Knowing he had to distract her, he sat down on the left side of her bed and took her hand, prompting her to look at him. The fear he saw there intensified tenfold when the nurse began to wipe down her wrist.

"Hey, Ziva, what's your favorite type of smoothie? Because I was thinking of going and getting us some from this place down the street." Tony knew he did not have her full attention—her eyes kept darting nervously to the right and her hand was trembling. "Ziva? Don't pay any attention to her, c'mon. You gotta tell me what kind of smoothie you like. Because it would really suck if I got you Strawberry Splash when you really wanted Banana Bonanza now wouldn't it?

The needle glinted in the light and then disappeared into her vein, and he knew he was losing her. She was shaking even worse now, mouth hanging open in an inaudible plea for help. Her chest began to heave and she threw her head back against the bed, desperate tears leaking from the corners of her terrified eyes.

"It's okay, no one's hurting you, you're okay." He rubbed his thumb back and forth against the back of her hand, but it did not seem to help anything. Her pain was imagined, but he knew that it didn't matter whether it was real or not. It _felt_ real to her, a phantom agony left over from months of torture and abuse.

After everything she had been through, she would not have to use her imagination much.

"There has to be something you can do?" Tony implored the nurse, his voice nearly cracking at the soft cries that fell from her mouth.

"I can give her a sedative. It'll last through the scan but that's probably preferable. After what she's been through and she symptoms she's been showing, I don't think she'd be able to lie still in the machine."

Tony nodded. "Do it."

It took much longer than he would have liked for her eyes to slide shut and the trembling to stop. He stayed with her even after she had gone unconscious, rubbing soft circles on her palm and, every now and then, pushing her curls behind her ears.

Eventually they wheeled her away, and he was left with an empty room and an unquenchable worry in his heart. He remembered her anxious eyes when he had left to get coffee, and he chuckled darkly as he ran his fingers through his messy hair.

What a fucked up, co-dependent pair they were, indeed.

oOo

When they returned her she was still sleeping, and the uneasiness in Tony's chest and stomach disappeared the second he could hold her hand.

She woke not too long after they brought her back. Her gaze fell first to him, and then to her right wrist, her shoulders falling in relief to see only a small cotton ball taped there. From there her gaze travelled all around the room, landing everywhere except for on him. First he was hurt, but then he understood.

Despite everything he had seen in the last week, she still managed to find it in herself to be embarrassed.

"It's okay. I hate needles, too. I got the plague a few months back, _man_ was it a bitch. Not fun. Ever since then I've avoided them at all costs. Them being needles, not the plague. I mean it's kind of obvious that I'd avoid the plague. That's why it's a saying, you know, avoiding something like the plague?" He knew he was rambling, but he frankly did not care. Rambling was, after all, what had gotten them through that unspeakable week.

He turned on the TV after that, and they spent the morning watching mindless shows. He flipped through anything violent, not sure of her triggers, so eventually they settled on harmless Disney Channel sitcoms.

When noon rolled around, Ziva managed to convince him to leave to go get something to eat.

"You sure I can't get you anything?"

"I have food here. They are…regulating my diet, remember?"

And so he left, albeit reluctantly, trying to pretend he didn't see the way her hand curled into a ball as he headed to the doorway.

"I'll bring you a smoothie," he promised, and then left.

oOo

_Permanent brain damage._

_Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures._

_Epilepsy._

_Post traumatic stress disorder._

The words floated relentlessly around her tired brain, bringing her nearly to the breaking point. In her ears echoed her father's imagined voice, taunting her— _you will never be good enough, you will never be good enough, you will never be good enough._ She grimaced when she realized this was wrong—she _could_ have been good enough in her father's eyes, but it would have to have been at a great cost.

_If you had died you would have been good enough._

He had never truly said such a thing. Those were words spoken days ago by a hallucination, conjured up by her own mind with a little help from a neurotoxin that her torturers had force into her veins. However, imagined-Eli had said it for a reason.

It was the truth, plain and simple, in its purest form.

_If you had died you would have made me proud._

As the list of the damage floated back to her, it was so very easy to wish that she had.

* * *

_A/N: I was blown away by the response to this story! I'm so thrilled that so many people like it. I decided to split Part II into two parts, so now instead of a three shot it will be a four shot. Don't worry though, length won't be sacrificed. I just have more ideas than I thought I would :)_

_One million and one thanks to Fatima (deliioness) for the ideas and help and beta-ing and constant butt kicking to get this monster up._

_Also thank you so much to the people who reviewed! I value the feedback so much, and those people who take the time to actually analyze what's happening in the story are gold because those analyses actually help me write the next parts. Thank you to __**PCNinja, prince-bishop, never-give-up-hope2, clestaffordt, bunnykoko, narski210, counttoamillion, ChEmMiE, dvd123, Travelin-Thru, trixie111, amaia, Blarney, tv-addict007, EowynGoldberry, greeny13, NCISrule9, sunnyside2/2broxy,**__ and __**three guest reviewers**__ for the great feedback. _

_Allison_


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